Chapter 27

‘JUST A MOMENT… your surname – Manolis, was it? What country is that from?’

Manolis cocked his head. The direct and personal nature of Cook’s question had caught him off guard. The suspect answered the questions – they didn’t bloody ask them.

‘It’s Greek,’ Manolis replied. ‘My father came to Australia after the war.’

‘Ah, the war,’ said Cook. ‘A topic close to every Brit’s heart. They fairly romanticise it nowadays. But it was a massive humanitarian disaster, tens of millions displaced in Europe alone.’

‘Dad wasn’t so much displaced,’ said Manolis. ‘He just saw a tired old country and compared it to a new country far away from invasion and conflict.’

‘My family did too. So you and I are more alike than we realise.’

Manolis sucked on his teeth. ‘Except that I was born here. I’m an Australian citizen, not a Greek one.’

‘That’s just luck. Do you speak Greek?’

‘I do.’

‘And you can get a Greek passport? Through your dad?’

Manolis paused. ‘Yes,’ he said warily.

‘You just never have. It’s an oversight.’

In mild frustration, Manolis leafed through his notepad. ‘It’s not a requirement, no. It’s optional. However, I suspect that if I went to live permanently in Greece, I probably would have. It only makes sense.’

Cook inspected the back of his hand, thick with blue veins. ‘I must say, though, it’s incredible to see how the Greeks are dealing with this latest refugee crisis, with all the boats arriving across the Mediterranean. For such a poor country to show such compassion and understanding, it’s rather astonishing. How is it that a country with so little to give can show such humanity?’

Manolis looked at Cook directly. Why would he know or care about such details with all his own problems?

‘When you find yourself stuck in an immigration detention centre,’ he said, ‘you take an interest in how other countries handle things.’

Manolis shrugged. ‘I suspect the Greek people’s generosity has got a lot to do with memory. They remember what happened a hundred years ago when Greece was flooded with refugees from Turkey. There are many people today with a refugee parent or grandparent. They want to honour them.’

Craning his neck to check on Deacon, Cook saw the guard now playing with an enormous key ring heavy with metal. On his other hip swung a hook-nosed rescue tool, a Hoffman knife.

‘See that?’ Cook said, voice lowered. ‘They call it a “cut-down knife”. They use it on inmates found hanging from nooses.’

Manolis swallowed. Cook gestured in the direction of the detention centre.

‘There’s a bloke up there who’s dug himself a six-foot grave behind Lilac Compound. He lies in it all day and all night.’

Cook said the various detention centre compounds had been given anodyne titles like Lilac, White and Gold. Primary colours were apparently too provocative.

‘And you should see the children,’ Cook said. ‘Can you imagine, being a young kid in that place?’

‘I can’t.’

Manolis mentioned the little girl he’d seen at the centre with sticky tape over her mouth.

‘Her mother put it there,’ said Cook. ‘It was after the other detainees in her donga had complained about the girl’s constant crying. The mum didn’t want further conflict.’

Manolis was appalled.

His horror turned to dismay when Cook said, ‘The children don’t know how to play anymore. I watch them, they don’t know what to do with puzzles and picture books. They don’t explore, don’t even talk. They just sit there numbly eating bits of foam rubber and paper. It breaks my heart.’

Manolis let the image settle in his mind. To make it go away, he pictured his son playing with the wooden train set he’d bought last Christmas.

‘Molly was especially troubled by the kids,’ Cook went on. ‘As a teacher, she was kept away from the worst conditions. But she saw them at the school where she taught in town and asked me about them all the time. I was candid with her, and because she cared about me, this had an impact.’

His sentiments were echoing what the principal had told Manolis during interview.

‘Molly was a woman with a conscience,’ Cook added.

Manolis nodded lightly.

‘Are you a parent?’ Cook asked.

Another personal question. Manolis paused. This time, when it came to his own child, he didn’t want a part of the conversation. ‘No,’ he lied.

‘Just as well. This isn’t a country into which to bring new life, let alone a world.’

Manolis refocused. ‘Where were you Friday night?’ he asked directly.

Cook lifted his mug, drank deeply. Manolis watched his throat bob as he swallowed. ‘You know I broke curfew,’ he said openly. ‘That’s why I’m here. You know I didn’t return until the morning.’

Manolis half-closed his eyes and nodded in agreement.

‘It was the end of the working week, time to unwind,’ Cook breathed. ‘There was a staff changeover, which means absolute chaos. On those nights especially, I want to be a million miles away from that place. They’re the worst. Like a college party. Unfortunately, following our conversation that afternoon, I knew that spending the night with Molly was not an option.’

‘Your conversation…?’ Manolis kept his words brief, careful not to get in the way of key facts as they revealed themselves.

Cook’s eyes clouded. He fought to compose himself.

‘Well, it was more of a disagreement, really. I went around to ask if she was free on Friday night. I didn’t expect it would be the last time we’d speak. Have you ever had that, Detective? Regrets over the last things you said to a person?’

Manolis nodded and sighed. ‘Many times.’

‘It’s new to me. Molly was a ray of sunshine in my otherwise dark existence. She made me feel human again. It’s a constant struggle to keep your sanity in detention. To maintain who you are without falling into the depths of despair.’

Manolis ran the back of his hand across his lips. ‘What did you disagree about?’

‘Sex,’ said Cook frankly.

‘How so?’

‘I wanted to spend the night with her. I missed her. Is that wrong? But she said no, she’d moved on.’

‘To?’

‘You mean…?’

‘To another person?’

Cook scratched his neck, rich with round freckles. ‘I’m not sure, she never said. Probably didn’t want to hurt my feelings if she had. She was like that. All I know was that she said no to me, so I backed down. She saw no future with me in indefinite detention, and potentially with deportation.’

‘So you were harassing her for sex?’ Manolis asked, remembering the nuisance calls that Molly was receiving.

Cook shook his head lightly. ‘That makes it sound so sordid, so sleazy. I was merely enquiring as to whether she was free to spend a lovely evening together.’

‘She had something else on?’

‘Again, I don’t know, she didn’t say.’

‘So what did you do next?’

‘The same thing I’ve always done since arriving in Cobb. I dove to the bottom of a bottle.’

‘You went to the pub? The top pub?’

Giving him a quizzical look, Cook said, ‘If you mean the pub at the northern end of town, then yes.’

‘Can anyone confirm your presence there?’

Cook thought a moment. ‘I’d say there were probably about fifty people who could confirm my presence there. But I couldn’t name a single one. They were just faces that blurred as the night went on.’

‘Did you drink with anyone in particular?’

‘I drank alone. Since being condemned to life in Cobb, I’ve gotten quite used to my own thoughts and company. At the pub, someone irregularly staggered up to me, breathed on me, fell on me, laughed at me, bought me another, staggered away. There was nothing major or especially memorable about the evening. It was just another night trying to outrun the thought of detention.’

‘What about the publican?’

‘He may remember me, I don’t know for certain. I don’t remember him. My mind’s shot since I came to Cobb.’

Cook lamented a worsening memory and concentration, a mounting fatigue and loss of vitality, and a reduced ability to act purposefully, all of which he blamed on his indefinite detention.

Manolis considered his suspect, who appeared collected, unflustered, with nothing to hide. Or was that all because he didn’t remember what he’d done on the night in question? People high on meth often didn’t remember their actions. At times, Manolis had been forced to sit with horrified addicts and watch their faces turn white as he imparted details of a brutal homicide or rape committed during their high. Ice zombies, they called them: aggressive, violent and unfeeling. Those who killed were ultimately convicted of manslaughter instead of murder, but the prison sentences were just as lengthy.

The tearoom felt suddenly narrow and airless. An urgency swelled inside Manolis, left him dizzy.

‘What time did you leave the pub?’

Resting his chin on his palm, Cook exhaled. ‘It’s hard to say. Whatever time they kicked us out. One o’clock, two o’clock, or later, I don’t know. I remember it was still dark, so it wasn’t yet morning, but that’s about all.’

‘And where did you go after you left the pub?’ Manolis asked.

Cook coughed into a tight fist and served up a half-lit smile. ‘I know this sounds somewhat bohemian, but I slept under a tree. There’s no way I could’ve walked home in that state. I was tired and drunk.’

‘Did anyone see you?’

‘Again, I don’t exactly know.’ Cook scratched his ear. ‘It was one of the many trees between the pub and detention centre. If it helps, I think it was a gum tree. Whichever tree it was, it was mercilessly uncomfortable for my aching neck and back. I’m terribly sorry I can’t be of more assistance, Detective. It was dark, there was no moon. And I was very, very drunk.’

They stared at each other intently. Finally, Manolis blinked and summarised the situation for Cook: his alibi was weak, he was once in an intimate relationship with the deceased, and he’d been seen harassing her the day before she died. Quite deliberately, Cook said he understood why Manolis would be making further enquiries, and welcomed them. He had nothing to hide. What Manolis did not vocalise were the detention centre jocks they’d found in Molly’s bedroom – he would carry around that little nugget in his head a while longer.

But he did ask one more thing. ‘Who do you think killed her?’

Cook looked instantly downhearted, his features slumping. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he checked the coast was clear.

‘One of them,’ he whispered, before adding, ‘One or more.’

Manolis eyed Deacon, now absently playing with his cut-down knife. ‘Any idea which one?’

‘No. They all look alike to me.’

‘And why, for what reason? Was Molly in a relationship with a guard?’

‘Beats me.’ Cook shrugged. ‘Why does anyone kill anyone else? Rage, jealousy, money, revenge… religion.’ He said the guards were the worst of all. ‘All blundering idiots, fresh out of high school, backpackers, overseas students, you name it. Hiring is rushed, job ads on websites and social media, no training or preparation. One minute they’re driving a forklift in a warehouse or flipping burgers, and the next they’re in charge of a compound with a hundred angry men.’

Manolis eyed Deacon again, the back of his bald head bandaged, his neck thick with fat.

‘Wouldn’t you want more social workers at the detention centre, people who understand human behaviour?’ Cook asked. ‘The privatising of all this immigration detention is simply the government distancing itself from the practices that go on. Day-to-day, there’s either nothing to do or a major incident. Calm or chaos. The guards are a mix of people who either can’t handle the monotony or can’t handle the incidents. Those who are compassionate burn out quickly. If you want to last in that job, you disconnect.’

It was the same with police, thought Manolis, and particularly those who worked homicide.

‘Anyway, let’s see how I now fare when I get back,’ Cook added. ‘They talk, you know. The guards, the detainees. I bet you they’re talking about me right this minute – it’s enough they know you dragged me here for questioning. The guards shoot first and ask questions later, while the detainees have their own tribal law. But I pity more the other man you spoke with. He’ll be judged more harshly than me, even by his own people, because his skin’s the wrong colour.’

Manolis stood, shook Cook’s hand firmly and with genuine understanding.

Cook met his gaze. ‘Stiff upper lip, eh, old chap?’ he said in a very British way. ‘Cheerio then, mate.’

Deacon took a calculated step forward, grabbed him by the arm. The guard eyed Manolis sternly through thin, letterbox eyes the colour of slate. He appeared to be barely in his twenties but had the weathered face of an old man.

With head tilted slightly, Manolis watched as Deacon manhandled Cook along the corridor. The guard prodded him in the back whenever he dragged his feet and surreptitiously jabbed him in the kidneys. They fell out the station door and into the waiting four-wheel drive, which drove away at top speed.

The street was empty, quiet. Manolis stood in the doorway. A hot, scouring breeze whipped up, unfurling a discarded tabloid and scattering the sheets like paper tumbleweeds. Galahs flung themselves into the air from tall eucalypts, shrieking like banshees. Crows dive-bombed something unseen and likely dead.

Clutching at his neck, Manolis exhaled away his tension. He’d seen enough, time to go home. And yet, the distant, impenetrable detention centre drew him. He’d been denied proper access and desperately wanted a good look inside.

‘You’ve got to get in there,’ he told himself. ‘Ta matia sou dekatessera.’ It was an old Greek phrase his mother used to say, meaning to pay close attention with fourteen eyes. It made no sense, but Manolis still liked it.

He locked the station, fought his way into his vehicle through the jammed door, and wrenched the key clockwise in the ignition. Angling the steering wheel in the direction of the road heading north, he pushed his foot down and accelerated away. The town disappeared behind him, the asphalt unfolded before him, dotted here and there with potholes and clumps of rubbish. Manolis rubbed at his midriff, a low, grieving pain having taken up residence in his abdomen. He needed to rest. But he also needed answers.

He thought with distaste of the new fragments he’d seen of the world. One suspect had a strong reason to stay in Australia and intimate knowledge of stonings, while the other was a jilted ex-lover with no alibi. Manolis needed to meditate on all this new information. He felt drunk and sober at the same time, and painfully human. He wondered how Sparrow’s bruised face was feeling. No sign of Kerr or Fyfe. No surprises there.

‘Something’s not quite right here,’ Manolis said to the empty cabin.

He pushed his foot harder. It was an automatic action, done without thought, merely to hasten his journey to the detention centre. The speedometer stayed flat; the needle was broken, but he knew he was smashing speed limits. The engine groaned. The car shook. Better back off, he told himself. He was being unnecessarily reckless, and a dip and bend in the road was approaching.

Lifting his foot, he went to tap the brake pedal.

And felt no resistance.

He pressed harder, felt the impotent gulp of the pedal, then felt his foot collapse to the floor.

Before he could react, the bend was upon him, the wheels were shuddering across the uneven ground, and the windscreen was filled with bushland and the thick white trunk of a fast-approaching gum tree.